Dear Editor,

Most recently, Pastor Lorenzo King of the Andrews Memorial Seventh-day Adventist Church led his congregation through a sermon on the "truth". The wife of the prime minister was in attendance on that particular day. The following day after the media carried the story, the head of the Seventh Day Adventists, Pastor Derek Bignall, according to the Observer on May 17, "issued a statement saying King was not speaking for the SDA church".

In an article, "Pastors, be warned!" published in the Observer, on June 15 also, Pastor Bignall in delivering a message to the church's western region sent a chilling warning to the pastors of the church of which he is the "maximum leader". The message reads, "You are a teacher of righteousness, so when you come to the pulpit you must preach Christ... and not politics. This place is for Jesus and Jesus alone", who went "about doing good... caring for the erring". A letter to the editor, "The Bignall theology", in the Observer on June 17, provided a crisp response to what appears to be a "tribal political response" to a perceived internal difference in the church.

I always admire the Seventh-day Adventists for their role in education as individuals and a collective, but Pastor Bignall's political dictate appears to be rooted in perceived personal difference as opposed to a theological matter, or a difference in religious political thinking. I find it difficult to link Pastor Bignall's dictate to an informed opinion and in the enlightened traditions of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I do not aim to give Pastor Bignall a lesson about Jesus; there are those who are uncomfortable about the political Jesus.

Pastor King did not refer to party politics but he dealt with issues that are political by definition. In my thinking, Pastor Bignall's outburst at young Pastor King's sermon on the truth is so similar to how the political and other leaders in the tribal politics of this country respond to new ideas, new thinking and free thinking. If Jesus were in Jamaica, he would stand right there beside Pastor King calling for the truth in a corrupt society and advocating ideas for social justice and action for a moral revolution. Pastor King should continue his call for a moral revolution. In the past, the established churches in this country closed their eyes to the ills of slavery and colonialism and conquest. If the churches and their leaders in contemporary Jamaica remain silent on the political questions, they too will close their eyes to the evils of political tribalism, corruption and the ills of under-development and thug rule, and chaos will continue to prevail.

Louis EA Moyston

Kingston 8

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